


Like A Peach

by strawberryproblems



Series: Setting the Record Straight [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: 'man' is a strong word, Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, Complicated Relationships, Healing, Jewish Neil Josten, LMAO, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-Canon, Self-Reflection, basically andrew replaces another toxic mary memory with a more positive one, gay culture, gay fanfic written by a gay man, getting over hang-ups, poc neil josten, unhealthy mother son relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24579535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberryproblems/pseuds/strawberryproblems
Summary: Neil hadn’t cut his hair since his mom died. He had dyed his hair post-viking funeral—he had to. But... cutting his hair was her thing. She always gave him the same buzz cut. Common. Fast. Cheap. Easy.He remembers the journey her fingers took from the top of his forehead to the base of his skull, the way his skin tingled as she pulled her hands away, not letting his hair tangle and hang on to her hands like it wanted to. Every part of him craved touch, even his hair was attempting to tie knots around her fingers, just so she would stay for a second more. He knew not to ask for it, and she knew he wouldn’t, hadn’t for a long time. And maybe that's exactly why she granted him the small show of affection, that was the first and last time he can remember a moment as soft as that one between the two of them.--A reflection into Neil's history with haircuts, his relationship with his mother, and him learning to let go yet another moment from his past... in other words, Neil gets a buzz cut, and Andrew likes it.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: Setting the Record Straight [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776601
Comments: 15
Kudos: 204





	Like A Peach

**Author's Note:**

> I am both POC and Jewish, and I have a lot of headcanons of Neil I will be projecting, so you have that to look forward too. I have a whole other fic in a proverbial workshop about colorism, antisemitism, and being mixed. essentially I HC Neil is Racially and Ethnically ambiguous as Hell, and he used it to his advantage on the run. 
> 
> This is Beta'd! all mistakes and odd ends are mine and mine alone!  
> [@sirfatcat-mccatterson](https://sirfatcat-mccatterson.tumblr.com/) and [@wishbonetea](https://wishbonetea.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr and [@wishbonetea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishbonetea/pseuds/wishbonetea) on AO3, so check out their fic's as well! (and a great beta who helped explain grammar stuff to me) 
> 
> so huge thanks to both of them.  
> my AFTG side-blog is [@i-did](https://i-did.tumblr.com/), shouldn't really be any triggers for this but feel free to talk to me  
> linked my own fanart for this in the bottom

Neil hadn’t cut his hair since his mom died. He had dyed his hair post-viking funeral—he had to. But... cutting his hair was her thing. 

He knew how to do it, of course. He had often helped cut hers since they didn’t trust anyone else to do it, anyone and everyone was an enemy, and his mom believed anyone trying to get them sitting in a chair while a pair of scissors could access their jugular was bad news. So he even knew how to cut a few different styles of long hair. The goal was innocuous and plain. She always gave him the same buzz cut. Common. Fast. Cheap. Easy. 

These moments were as close as they ever got to being more than just accomplices in each other's crimes, him and his mother. They were family, of course, but not in a way he had seen in anyone else before. They would kill for each other—have killed for each other—but they didn’t exactly make small talk or ask about each other's days. She didn’t even use a name when speaking to him. When he was young, before running away, his Little League papers said Abram instead of Nathaniel, but the extent of her addressing him as such was specifically for the coach or other eyes who may have been present. It was originally supposed to be his Jewish name, it was given at his bris, and was supposed to be used in synagogue and other religious events. But being openly Jewish left their lives shortly after the first few times of the Baltimore house had been defaced, as well as the cops finding all the motivation to investigate his father. They didn’t need to test the already rocky image they held in the public eye. Abram was meant to be a private name, not made to be used by many, if at all, and shortly after stopped leaving the mouth of his mother. He wonders if it hurt when she swallowed it, or if her throat had become numb from the practice she had over the years. 

Her lack of calling out to him didn't end there. She always avoided calling him by the fake names she had given him unless absolutely necessary, always finding other ways to get his attention. He wonders if it was a residual effect of the mourning of Abram, or if she was trying to make sure whoever was around to overhear them would have one less thing to remember them by.

A part of him knows that’s why he can’t help but visibly flinch whenever he hears his dead name, because he can’t remember a time when she used it, and any word so buried can become powerful if unspoken yet remembered for long enough. She never got the chance to beat that particular flinch out of him, even she herself was too scared to say it.

From place to place they moved, and cutting hair was one of the few things that stayed the same. She would come home with a pair of cheap drug store clippers that tugged at his thick curls almost harshly, and sometimes he could hear the snap of a strand breaking where it hadn't cut right. The heavy buzz felt too deep in his skull, too heavy. Like he had swallowed something mechanical and it rose to his head instead of sinking to his stomach, and it was rattling inside him. When he was younger he had always hated haircuts. He remembers feeling itchy and overwhelmed, sobbing as rough hands quickly sheared away bangs he didn't realize he was using to hide behind. He learned to hide his discomfort quickly, learned to not make such a scene.

And after his mother took him and left his father behind, the haircuts, in some odd way, became a moment of safety for him. He still hated feeling itchy and holding still, but… the very first time she had done it, she had run her fingers through his hair. He remembers the journey her fingers took from the top of his forehead to the base of his skull, the way his skin tingled as she pulled her hands away, not letting his hair tangle and hang on to her hands like it wanted to. Every part of him craved touch, even his hair was attempting to tie knots around her fingers, just so she would stay for a second more. He knew not to ask for it, and she knew he wouldn’t, hadn’t for a long time. And maybe that's exactly why she granted him the small show of affection. He was ten then, and that was the first and last time he can remember a moment as soft as that one between the two of them.

After that, he learned to savor the haircuts: the quiet that typically blanketed them, as he sat and watched her scarred and calloused hands break open the unnecessarily thick plastic the hair kits always came in; the way he would silently watch her plug the clippers into whatever outlet she could find, as he waited for the sound of the hum to drown out his already draining thoughts. This was their tenderness.

She wasn’t exactly coddling him in these moments, but it was as close to gentle she had ever been with him. 

It always seemed like the shears were missing bits because his curls made it difficult to cut evenly. She would run the clippers over the same spots—over and over and over—and somehow endlessly cutting away at just a few more strays. 

When his natural hair was short enough it was harder to tell that his hair wasn’t a typical brown. His roots were just like his fathers. The same burnt umber… the way it resembled deep soil, or even the color of dried blood. He sometimes wondered if that’s partly why she hated it so deeply, beyond just his resemblance to her husband. If her distaste for the color included finding crusted flecks hours later in his hair, the way it was always almost invisible if it wasn't for the way the dried liquid matted his curls. Or maybe she just thought it was another ugly reminder of who exactly half of her son was made up of.

He tugs his thoughts back to cutting hair, back to the countless tile floors he stared at while watching fried up dark locks fall to the floor by his feet while he sat on the toilet as she cut away. He remembers the way she used to touch him with only her fingertips while working around his ears, cleaning up his neck and sideburns.

Once, after she had finished her work—when he was around 14—his mom had simply said “you need to start shaving soon” and that was that. He shaved every day he could after she gave him a razor. He watched coarse facial hair grow from patchy to thick, his stubble definitively more fitting of the label ginger than the hair on his head. He thought it was about hiding that at first, but then he remembered his father had always seemed to have a perpetual five o’clock shadow, a short layer of stubble he managed to manicure without ever shaving down completely. Neil found himself shaving both morning and night after that. He would rub his face compulsively feeling for stubble as often as he checked his roots. Combining his fingers through the darker and duller dyed strands on his scalp, finding a hint of the warmness that broke though the ashy box dyes and touching his face became second nature. He was lucky to have dark eyebrows and lashes. He once wondered that if he had been born blond by some genetic fluke he would have had to dye his eyebrows too.

He sits now, coming back to himself—back to Neil—from the dark and nameless place to the Palmetto dorm bathroom. Neil feels himself stretch back into his body, starting from the core of his chest, and reaching to his fingertips and toes. He sees not just his body, but himself, sitting on the closed toilet lid with Andrew’s clippers in the palm of his hand.

Andrew only ever did a simple buzz cut, as did Aaron, and they both only let it grow out around an inch or so before cutting it back again. Nicky once joked how it must have been one of those “twin things,” but Neil knew that no-one had driven either of the twins to a barbershop growing up, he knew no-one could grab buzzed hair.

Andrew startles him by walking into the bathroom. He wonders if Andrew knocked first and Neil was so caught up in his mind he didn’t even hear it. Neil notes how Andrew didn’t seem surprised, as if he had known Neil would be seated right there, thinking of him. Neil almost wonders if some part of him had been waiting for Andrew to find him, and how good it feels to be found. Andrew watches him, and Neil watches right back. 

They both know Neil hadn’t intentionally grown his hair past his jaw. The length unmanageable for Neil’s unawareness of how to take care of his hair type. Neil’s mind held vague memories of a silk wrap tying it back for sleep for a bed in Baltimore. Shortly after the beginning of his more transient lifestyle a small thing such as hair maintenance was quickly deemed inessential. 

It had been more than two years since his mom had cut it, and there's a stark difference between where Riko had guessed his natural color and his natural roots, segregated not only by color, but health. The bandana he uses to hold it back on the court get’s too hot and sweaty. The knot where the fabric ties often digs into the base of his skull where it rides up under the helmet. Neil doesn’t care how he looks, but the current state of his hair is more trouble than it’s worth.

Andrew looks at him the way he always does when he is reading everything there is to Neil Josten, the very way that used to fill Neil with such burning fear and distrust but now comes with the unfamiliarly pleasant feeling of being known. The way Andrew can so effortlessly note and dismiss whatever hang-up Neil snags himself on from his patchwork past will always be something Neil is in awe of. It's not that Andrew doesn't care, it's that he understands. Andrew waits to see if Neil will sink or swim, and if he sinks, Andrew will pull him out of whatever dark water he’s drowning in until he can swim and breathe again. 

Today is not a good day, but it is a manageable one. Neil feels himself lift his hand up, the one holding the clippers, and asks, “Will you?”

Andrew doesn't nod, but he steps further into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. There is an almost imperceptible beat before Andrew decides to lock it. 

Neil knows that Andrew knows how to do this, and even if he didn’t a buzz cut is simple enough. Anyone could manage. They both know Neil could do this on his own, but he wants the first person to do this since his mom to be Andrew. 

Andrew opens the black drawstring bag that holds the other clipper guards and pulls out a pair of hair scissors and two more guards, angled specifically to go around ears, and sets them on the counter.

Andrew gently thumbs at Neil’s shirt collar in a silent question. With a silent answer, Neil pulls the shirt over his head and throws it onto the counter, trusting in both the comfort of Andrew's gaze and the knowledge of the door being locked. His mom always made him keep his shirt on. His own mother didn’t like to see his scars, and she always avoided exposing her own. The proof of their suffering was forbidden even in their own hideouts.

Neil liked how he didn't have to let his shirt be itchy with hair prickles for the next few days, that Andrew could hold the weight of Neil’s past. 

He feels Andrew note the shortness of the guard Neil chose. The two will cut shorter than technically needed, but it will act as a fresh start with base roots. 

Neil can feel every single strand as it is cut dry where Andrew chooses. The slightest tension being released one at a time, and the satisfying sound of the metal snip. It has such a finality to it and yet it continues, over and over as Andrew cuts away, placing the handfuls in the trash can by their legs. This is the longest his hair has ever been, he thinks. None of his childhood photos showed it being this long and his mom never let it grow to this point. He watches the trash slowly be filled with pieces of himself, pieces of who he pretended to be from Arizona to South Carolina, and watching this feels almost nostalgic as Andrew gently nudges his head in whatever direction he needs. 

It is both similar and yet nothing like when his mother had cut his hair. Andrew has the same solid yet gentle touch, the tips of his fingers being the main point of contact. The hum of the clippers seems universal, but Andrew didn’t let them knock against Neil’s skull, he worked as if all of Neil’s scalp was a fresh bruise. The steady and slow pace he works in is so different to the almost rushed way his mom used to do it. He thinks for the first time now how cutting his hair may have just been a chore for her, how he will never know if it was special to his mom the way it was to him. 

But it doesn’t matter now, because with Andrew there is this undeniable intimacy. Neil isn’t a child anymore, starving for the only gentle touch he can get no matter its shape. Neil knows this truth has been building beneath his skin, taking an almost tangible shape as it pushes past his skin, wanting to go further than the forefront of his mind, but into reality. This truth craves to be made into an action, and Neil finds himself raising his hand, pausing a breath away from Andrew's forearm but still not touching, and Andrew freezes. Neil looks up from his feet to Andrew’s eyes, he is distantly aware of how odd he must look, half his hair shaved off with the other half unevenly cut, but he doesn’t think about anything but how they both breathe in the reality of this moment. Andrew places one of his hands over Neil's, not minding how it's covered in small splinters of hair, completing the movement for him. Andrew rubs his thumb over Neil’s uneven knuckles, before lifting his hand again, leaving Neil's hand placed on his forearm, and letting Neil hold onto him as he continues to cut.

Andrew eventually gives up on cutting it all, as he runs over the same areas where several more hair strands still manage to pop up despite the almost brutal shortness of the number two guards. Andrew cleans up the edges around Neil’s ears, sideburns, and the not-so-baby-hairs on the back of Neil’s neck.

His head tingles from the constant buzz of the clippers, and feels Andrew indulging himself as he rubs the fuzz that is now Neil’s scalp. Neil closes his eyes feeling like a peach being gently held, with Andrew's fingers stroking the fuzz on his scalp. Andrew continues rubbing his hands over and over on Neil’s scalp, finding patterns and ways to curl his fingers around Neil’s ears, and Neil feels a hum in his chest, warm and organic. Above him, Neil hears Andrew clear his throat.

“Hey.”

“Hmm?”

“Are you going to look?”

“Yeah… yeah. I will.”

“You’ll have to open your eyes to do that, junkie.”

“I trust you.”

“You haven't even looked yet. It could look like shit.” 

“I’m not talking about the hair.”

“...”

“Andr—”

“I know.”

“...”

“I trust you too, Neil.”

**Author's Note:**

> [My fanart/my aftg sideblog](https://i-did.tumblr.com/post/620230756154982400/my-aftg-fanart-based-off-of-my-own-fanfic-because)


End file.
